Supplementary Research Sources for the ASFE Study of the Student Population in Bologna During the Early Modern Period

Abstract

Having completed a database of institutional sources relating to the University of Bologna during the early modern period (the ASFE project section titled Onomasticon Studii Bononiensis), we now aim to provide an overview of certain potential supplementary sources that might complete the picture and above all fill in areas left uncovered by serial documentation relating to the University. The Status animarum of parishes, as with personal files of professors, together with processes involving students, provide sources that will enable us to obtain a better overall picture of the Bologna University’s student population during the Ancien Régime. The research will then focus on a source as yet unutilized to this end, and this is the epitaphs in the numerous Bologna churches, where many students who died suddenly during their university years in the city are buried. Very often, these students do not appear in the ASFE database in that, as a result of their sudden death, they had not yet managed to officially enrol at the University.